Heart's Ann Wilson Re-Starts "The Revolution Starts Now"

Ann Wilson, by Shepard Fairey

Wilson’s cover of the Steve Earle classic sounds so apropos in the fall of 2020.

I didn’t know I wanted to hear Ann Wilson of Heart sing Steve Earle’s “The Revolution Starts Now” until I knew such a thing existed. Heart was never known for its confrontational activism, but once I received an email announcing the track, the idea of Wilson’s voice on such an anthemic song seemed so natural that I couldn’t wait to play it. Fortunately, the reality of the song more than lives up to its promise, and the difference between her version of Earle’s isn’t in the performance as much as the performers. She doesn’t personalize the song any more than her voice personalizes anything she sings, but the fact that she’s singing it makes all the difference.

When Earle recorded “The Revolution Starts Now” in 2004, the song did the work. Earle and his band certainly played their parts, but the immediacy and clarity of the call to action at the point when George W. Bush’s war in Iraq needed some musical middle fingers pointed its way. It was bold and compelling and effectively delivered, but Earle couldn’t put as much skin in the game as Wilson. He had been politically progressive, so the fight suited him well. And, he has never been a guy to shy from a scrap, which works just fine in the rock ’n’ roll world, which has always loved a street fighting dude. 

Wilson, on the other hand, has lived her professional life in the musical mainstream, a generally apolitical space where she unquestionably has fans who only want as much “Crazy on You” and “Barracuda” as they can get. One fan wrote on her Facebook page, “If politics encroaches on this page, its see ya later from this fan..” When she calls for revolution, she puts fans like that one and the money associated with them on the line. The fact that she is an adult woman only adds to gravity because she’s not simply the voice of raucous youth. She’s lived enough for the song to be about more than just the president. It’s impossible to not hear Fuck the Patriarchy in her version, no matter how warmly and expressively she sings, because that’s part of her story. She has had to deal with sexism throughout her career, often in very public and painful ways. 

When Wilson sings, “In your own backyard, in your own hometown,” I hear her tossing the tables in the domestic space that has traditionally been assigned to women. The revolution doesn’t just start now; it starts here. My wife takes those references to the home front more metaphorically and—while Amy Coney Barrett is in the process of being confirmed to the Supreme Court—connects them to women’s reproductive rights and their need for defenders.

Wilson says “The Revolution Starts Now” song is “a powerful, uplifting anthem of unity. It’s an incitement to think higher than polarization and derision. We need that now. I used to love this song in a ‘fun’ way. Nowadays, I take it much more seriously and urgently.” That’s clear from when and how she dropped the song, and from the video, which presents a vision of change through inclusion and acceptance..

The Barrett nomination and the election while living in The Year of Our Mask 2020 has been such a grind that the song lands at exactly the right time, and Wilson accompanied it with a portrait of her by Shepard Fairey, who did Obama’s famous “Hope” graphic. That gestures itself has an appealing audacity, and perhaps because the song’s more about change than violence, that echo of hope travels gently with her version. 

Wilson’s “The Revolution Starts Now” isn’t the first release from an upcoming album; it’s a true one-off made to respond to the moment we’re living in. That in itself gives it extra juice. 2020 got her off the bench and in the game, and while Earle’s recording has plenty of power as a rallying cry, hers is the one that speaks the most effectively and reassuringly now.